Top Films 2021

 

Drama

Best overall: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom  Entertaining story of 1920’s jazz band recording session. Denzel directs Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman in his last movie (Netflix)

Close second: Bruised  Halle Berry directs herself as loser MMA fighter making a comeback. Impressive action (Netflix)

Best historic: Fire Over England  1939 restored classic courtesy of BFI. Fascinating backgrounds with excellent use of trompe d’oeil (Prime)

Close second: Coven of Sisters  Young women accused of witchcraft literally run rings round Spanish inquisition. Nobody expects that! (Netflix)

Best imagined historic: Ammonite  Fanciful but believable tale centred on Mary Anning (Prime)

Best Christian: An Interview with God  Journo in crisis gets to interview the almighty. Witty and ecumenical (Prime)

Best British: Surge  Ben Wishaw in overdrive racing round Tottenham (Netflix)

Most jingoistic: Iron & Blood  Extremely jingoistic Russian film. Those Cossacks are bonkers! (DVD)

Action

Best Statham: Wrath of Man  The Statham in top action mode. Best line: “You can do what the fuck you like.” (Prime)

Funniest: Red Notice  The Rock and co perform ridiculous feats in globe-trotting mayhem (Netflix)

Christmas

Best: The Green Knight  Very trippy telling of the Sir Gawain story (Prime)

Most slushy: Silver Skates  Posh woman falls for pickpocket in a frozen St. Petersburg (Netflix)

Comedy

Best Overall: Death to 2020  Very funny spoof/mockumentary. Accurate characterisations especially the Karen and republican aide (Netflix)

Best low budget: All at Sea  Old man in retirement home plans to illegally bury his friend at sea (Netflix)

Thrillers

Best overall: Remember  Christopher Plummer fantastic as geriatric Nazi hunter. Suspect the makers of the series Hunters nicked the idea from this movie (Prime)

Weirdest: The Ninth Configuration  1980 ‘cult classic’ based on a book from 1968 (original title a spoiler). Great cast and funny in places. A very odd do (Prime)

Best true spy: A Call to Spy  Eclectic female spies in occupied France include an Indian princess and a woman with a wooden leg (Netflix)

Close second: The Catcher is a Spy  Polyglot baseball player goes after Heisenberg. Good but fizzles out at the end (Prime)

Best psycho: Inheritance  Woman discovers someone hidden in a bunker, lets him out. Predictable but convincing and rare unfunny turn by Simon Pegg (Netflix)

Most twisty end: The Unforgivable  Sandra Bullock comes out of prison, tries to rebuild her life and connect to her baby sister. A Red Production based on their TV series Unforgiven with Sally Wainwright as Exec Producer; they’ve gone up in the world! (Netflix)

Best Political: And Tomorrow the Entire World  Posh German student joins Anti-Fa. Increasing levels of violence ensue. Good use of ambient sound (Netflix)

Westerns

Best overall: The Power of the Dog  Ben Cumberbatch comes a cropper when he befriends gawky step-nephew (Netflix)

Best modern: Concrete Cowboy  Brilliant story based on actual urban cowboys in Philadelphia. I had no idea this was a thing (Netflix)

Best for fun: The Harder They Fall  Real historical characters collide in imagined scenario. Great actors, great sets, great soundtrack although The Harder They Come strangely absent (Netflix)

Best horror: Dead Birds  Confederates rob a bank, hole up, strange monsters appear. Interestingly weird and well shot (Prime)

Music

Best music drama: The Sound of Metal  (spoiler) Heavy metal drummer goes deaf, goes to live in a community, gets implants, gets chucked out, goes back to girlfriend, realises she’s better without him, leaves, takes implants out, the end (Prime)

Best musical bio: Bohemian Rhapsody  Rami Malek very convincing as Freddie Mercury, loads of songs, sad bits and funny bits. Best line ‘piss-flap’ (Prime)

Close second: Judy  Renee Zellweger rather good as Judy Garland during her last days in London (BBC2)

Bio

Best overall: Charlie Says  Excellent telling of Charles Manson from point of view of 3 brainwashed acolytes on death row. Really good turn by an unrecognisable Matt Smith (Prime)

Best British: The Keeper  True tale of Bert Trautmann, ex-Nazi interred after the war, became Man City goalie, broke neck in FA cup final, carried on playing. Couldn’t believe I’d never heard of him before (BBC4)

Best action: Papillon  Great if long remake of the escape from Devil’s Island with the wonderfully versatile Rami Malik (Prime)

Most educational: The King’s Choice  The story of why we get a Christmas Tree from Norway (Prime)

Most frightening: A Dark reflection  Based on the exposé of engine air poisoning airline passengers. Alarmingly still not fixed, apparently only 787’s have a filtration system (Prime)

Best Civil rights: The Blakkklansman  A Spike Lee joint. Black undercover cop infiltrates the KKK. Good apart from the depressing preachy footage at the end. Why does he always have to do that? (Channel 4)

Close second: The Best of Enemies  Interesting story of charette in deep south; the developing friendship between a black activist and president of the KKK chapter who later toured to tell their story (Netflix)

Most worthy: The Mauritanian  Jody Foster as lawyer working on behalf of suspected 9/11 terrorist in Guantanamo (Prime)

Best imaginary: One Night in Miami  Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Browne and Mohammed Ali argue in motel room after Sonny Lister fight (Prime)

Most post-modern: Synecdoche New York  Odd story of Caden Cotard creating a microcosm of real life in a warehouse with blurred boundaries (DVD from freebie box)

Best crime bio: Holy Rollers  Orthodox Jewish kid Jesse Eisenberg smuggles ‘special medicine for rich people’ (Prime)

Most awful accents: Peterloo  Shown on the anniversary of the massacre. Too long and talk about laying it on thick. We guffawed at the accents throughout. A good job we weren’t at the pictures (Film 4).

Best Doc: Basically, Johnny Moped  Entertaining and amusing tale of early days of punk rock (Netflix)

Daftest Alternative Bio: Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler  Weird conspiracy bollocks wherein an aging Hitler lives in Argentina (Prime)

Sci-fi, Fantasy and Myth

Best overall: In The Shadow of the Moon  Cop tries to stop woman coming from future during certain moon phases to kill people. Unexpected ending (Netflix)

Best satirical: Don’t Look Up  Meteor about to hit earth, politicians and Elon Musk/Bezos/Zuckerberg character conspire to profit. Blended our comment on capitalists monetising climate action with conspiracy theories, of which we’ve had many the last 2 years. Funny and clever (Netflix)

Most over-hyped: Ad Astra  So-so introspective space opera with a broody Brad and some pretty bits (Prime)

Most original idea: Alastair 1918  WW1 soldier from Shibden comes through wormhole to land in LA (Prime)

Best aliens: The Tomorrow War  Chris Pratt meets up with daughter of future to save world from fab man-eating aliens (Prime)

Best arthouse: Ink  Arty, stylish, and interestingly imaginative (Prime)

Best pandemic: Songbird  In the near future of 2023, variant Covid-23 emerges and the world enters a 4^th year of lockdown. At least Michael Bay wasn’t whingeing about not being able to make blockbusters and getting with the zeitgeist! (Prime)

Most surreal: Jesus Shows You The Way to the Highway  Based on a Philip K Dick story, featuring AR, loony Ethiopian beliefs and magic sweets. Completely bonkers and a hoot from start to finish (Prime)

Most fun: Bloodshot  Ex -soldier Vin Diesel gets killed, re-animated and augmented with nano bots by evil genius. Good CGI (Netflix)

Daftest Sequel: Iron sky 2  Ridiculous fan-funded effort. Journey to centre of the earth, Hitler on a dinosaur and a Laibach soundtrack. What’s not to love! (Prime)

Worst sequel: Skylin3s  Mildly entertaining but terrible script. Out-takes the best bit (Netflix)

Best classic: Things to Come  Coloured-in version of the 1930’s HG Wells classic. Going from endless war, through plague to a future dominated by machines. Very weird in retrospect (Prime)

Best re-watch: Bladerunner 2049  A stunning movie with awesome sound (DVD)

Close second: Doomsday  They were wrong about how people would act during Brexit, a pandemic and lockdowns but the fictional plague is far more interesting than the real one (DVD)

Best Comic character: Joker  Stand-alone tale of the Batman villain.  Joaquin Phoenix brilliant (Prime)

Most bonkers: Aquaman  Jason Momoa as half-blood king of Atlanta. Enjoyable escapism (Prime)

Most imaginative: Armageddon Gospels  Old gods wash up on shore of southern England to try and resurrect paganism (Prime)

Best Nordic: Valhalla: The Legend of Thor  Engaging Danish telling of Thor and Loke going to earth and taking 2 kids back to Valhalla(Prime)

Horror

Best low budget: Ripper Untold  Engaging take on Jack the Ripper story with interesting twist (Prime)

Best exorcism: The Seventh Day  Young priest tries to expel demons from young boy (Netflix)

Funniest: Bingo Hell  Gran seeks revenge on evil bingo hall killer in fifth instalment of the Blumhouse anthology (Prime)

Best NZ: Shadow in the Cloud  Young woman smuggles baby onto WW2 fighter plane (Prime)

Daftest disaster: The Meg  Basically Jaws with bigger fish. Not The Statham’s best effort (Channel 5)

Best demons: Bram Stoker’s Shadow Builder  Everyday tale of world-destroying demons. Absolute hoot (Prime)

Best vampires: Night Teeth  Everyday tale of vampires in LA - a daft place to live with all that sunlight (Netflix)

Best Zombies: Army of the Dead  Enjoyable romp with Dave Bautista, Tig Natura and associates fighting their way in and out of a damned Las Vegas. Possibly made last year when the place was deserted (Netflix)

Best sequel: Zombieland Double Tap  Fun follow-up with meta ref to Bill Murray (Netflix)

Best cameos: The Dead Don’t Die  Funny bits and good turns from Tilda Swinton and Iggy Pop but patchy with a fizzly end (Netflix)

Crime

Best whodunit: The Mystery of a Hansom Cab  Classic mystery, set in a very English-looking Melbourne. Ads not too annoying (IMDB via Prime)

Best British: Once Upon A Time in London  Second viewing of this everyday tale of cheeky chappies from the East End of London. Still good (Prime)

Most violent: Sweet Girl  Man vows revenge on pharma boss for withdrawing cancer drug his wife was taking. Violent rampage ensues (Netflix)

Most tenuous prequel: Army of Robbers  Prequel to Army of the Dead. Only glimpses of zombies (Netflix)

Most frightening: I Care A Lot  Rosamund Pike’s heartless ‘carer’ strips elderly of their assets, comes up against gangster Peter Dinklage. Lots of twists but suddenly moral end (Netflix)

Funniest: Killing Gunther  Incompetent assassins collaborate to kill Arnie who unusually speaks German. Guessing from the quasi-cameo, he did it for nothing (Prime)

Close second: Queenpins   Middle class women in coupon scam (Prime)

Best Indian: The White Tiger  Boy becomes driver for rich family. Good songs but no dancing! (Netflix)

Best heist: The Vault  Egghead college-boy Freddie Highmore helps gang break into vault under Banco España. Made we want to watch Money Heist again (Prime)

Most un-PC: The Mule  Clint Eastwood as geriatric drugs runner. Typically dry humour with no filter (Prime)

Most twisty: The Informer  Joel Kinnaman goes back to prison in double-dealing plot involving a Polish drug gang, the NYPD and FBI (Prime)

Best assassin: Kate  Assassin gets poisoned, seeks vengeance with no messing about (Netflix)

Close second:  The Rhythm Section  Jude Law trains Blake Lively to be crap assassin (Netflix)

Most confusing: Capone  Odd tale of last year of the gangster’s life. Tom Hardy great as always (Netflix)

War

Best overall: Persian Lessons  Belgian Jew convinces Nazi he’s Persian and teaches him ‘Farsi’. Clever, funny and with Jonas Nay of ‘Deutschland’ fame; not sure why The Guardian didn’t like it (Prime)

Best Costume: Master and Commander  Realistic and moving.  Best line: “the lesser of two weevils’ (DVD)

Best WW1: The War Below  True tale of miners recruited to put explosives in tunnel under the Germans. Very educational (Netflix)

Best Russian: Convoy 48–The War Train   True story of young women building railway and operating trains to Leningrad and beyond. Subtitles a bit funny especially constant use of ‘fiddle sticks’, presumably to denote swear words (Prime)

Best Korean: Battleship Island  Nasty Japs use Koreans as slave labour on coalmine island which can now be visited for a fun holiday, thanks to UNESCO! (Prime)

Best Bogart: Sahara  Humphrey and crew in small tank outsmart Nazis in desert (DVD)

Best low budget: We Go In At Dawn  Daring rescue in occupied France during runup to D-day (Prime)

Maddest: My Way  Mad but true What a guy!(DVD)

Grimmest: Escape from Sobribor  True tale of escape from notorious and depraved Nazi death camp, led by heroic Russian; as if there’s any other kind!(Prime)

Best for kids: War of the Buttons  Kids from rival villages in the Loire go to war, band together to protect a Jewish girl (prime)

Most perplexing: The Forgotten Battle  Dutch film set just before allies arrived.  Made out Nazis were human too – as if!(Netflix)

Film Reviews 2020

 

Film of the year and best war film - 1917 – Epic!  Amazing single take at the start.  That Sam Medes thinks he’s dead clever, doesn’t he? (Prime)

Best comedy – A Personal History of David Copperfield – Genuinely funny, excellent cast, as you’d expect from Iannucci.  (Prime)

Best Musical - Cabaret - Had forgotten how great this film is and that we had a posh BFI freebie from back when newspapers used to give away discs. (DVD)

Most re-made music drama - A Star is Born - Lady Gaga very good (well, who wasn’t better than Streisand but not as good as Garland) as too was Bradley Cooper as drunken has-been.  Not enough songs.  This film has now been made 5 times! (Prime)

Best Noir - Terminal - Interesting effort by Margot Robbie.  Stylish and twisty. (Prime)

Worst Brad Pitt - The Dark Side of the Sun -  a very young Mr. Pitt debuts as boy with weird skin disease meeting lovely actress.  Set in Yugoslavia thus showing its age.  Rather fond of fighting and drink driving round those parts. (DVD)

Best Shakespeare-derived - Ophelia – Colin Farrell excels as evil king. (Netflix)

Most mixed genres - King of the Travellers - 2 Irish traveller families feud.  Funny start, went a bit western, then ended up as Romeo & Juliet.  Great song by Johnny Cash: ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’. (Prime)

Best suspense drama - Go With Me - Anthony Hopkins helps a young woman track nasty Ray Liotta.  Good but lots of unexplained stuff such as why the sheriff didn’t help her and why Hopkins was so keen to catch the bad man. (Prime)

Best Spike Lee Joint - Da 5 Bloods - Old Vietnam vets go back to find body of their fallen comrade and gold, with inevitable results. Good use of old footage and Trump jokes but Inevitably preachy at the end. (Netflix). 

Best Melodrama - The Artist - Black and white, mostly silent, funny, and wonderful acting dog. (DVD)

Best Western - Lonesome Dove - True tale of preacher’s ambition to build a church. (Prime)

Best Spy - Black Book - Jewish woman joins Dutch resistance, accused of spying for the Nazis. Good, twisty story.  Made Dutch look as bad as the Nazis; interesting as it’s by Paul Verhoeven. (Prime)

Close second - Despite the Snow - Story of Russian woman spying for America interspersed with modern day ancestor finding out what happened to her. (Prime)

Best teen - Enola Holmes - Entertaining tale of younger sister of Sherlock.  Possible TV pilot. (Netflix)

Daftest action - Rambo Last Blood - Thin, predictable storyline. The Rambo goes to rescue his not-daughter, with inevitable results. (Prime)

Glitziest - The Aeronauts - First balloonists to get above the clouds.  Loosely based on a true story, female lead  an amalgam of 2 actual women.  Felicity Jones very funny in the role. (Prime)

Most intelligent Statham - Redemption (Aka Hummingbird) - wondered anew why he didn’t do more stuff like this. (Prime)

Best sequel - Angel Has Fallen - best in the franchise by far, possibly due to Nick Nolte as jaded Vietnam vet who springs into action. (Prime)

Best disaster - Skyscraper - Dwayne as ex-soldier having to save family from mile-high skyscraper on fire.  An updated Towering Inferno but fun. (Netflix).

Best Psychological Thriller - The Devil All The Time – based on book by Donald Ray Pollock, in the vein of Cormack McCarthy.  Best quote: “some people are born to be buried.”  (Netflix)

Most pointless remake - Rebecca - Ben Wheatley manages to make it less spooky than the original. (Netflix) 

Best of the Rest

Comedy

Second best comedy - The Story of Fire Saga - hilarious!  Tons of cameos from actual Eurovision contestants, fantastic fake songs and great research on Icelandic folklore; un sure what Icelanders made of it! (Netflix)

Best Shakespeare-related - Bill - Lute-player seeks fortune in London. (Prime)

Most mayhem - The Baytown Outlaws - Ne’er do wells rescue a boy in a wheelchair, with attendant mayhem, car chases and shoot ups. (Prime)

Cleverest - 5 Greedy Bankers - imaginative low budget Brit Flick. Hilarious turn by Pippa Heywood, good use of cheap locations and props, great music, some good old-fashioned slapstick and several laugh-out-loud moments. (Prime)

Best caper - The Captor (aka Stockholm) - story of daftest heist in history, from where term ‘Stockholm syndrome’ comes; actually a misnomer; she was just glad to meet someone in Sweden who wasn’t totally boring and conformist! (Prime)

Best Welsh - The Baker - hitman hides in Welsh village, ends up as a baker. (Prime)

Quirkiest - Blow The Man Down - 2 girls in small coastal Maine town try to cover up a crime leading to uncovering others. (Prime)

Best Hugh Grant - The Gentlemen - Grant channelling Michael Caine in typical Guy Ritchie caper. Excellent routines from The Toddlers. (Prime)

Best old men - Going with Style.  Gentle comedy wherein old blokes cheated out of pensions do a bank robbery.  Lovely acting and good cameos. (Netflix)

True Life/Biopic

Best court-room - The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Well-told story of anti-Vietnam war activists accused of starting riots. (Netflix)

Most shocking - Dark Waters - How Dupont poisoned us all with Teflon. Terrifying!  Enough to make you join the tin-foliers! (Prime)

Best girl power- Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl – Indian film about first female fighter pilot, battling chauvinism all the way. (Netflix)

Second best - Hidden Figures - Amazing Black women at NASA.  A bit cheesy but good.  (Film 4)

Best Nazis - Good - Writer given job of justifying eugenics.  Rises up the ranks despite misgivings. (Prime)

Best Christian - The Meanest Man in Texas - Young man gets sentenced to death row for murder he was only partly responsible for.  Finds love and redemption.  Good apart from the Jesus message. (Prime)

Best Space - Skywalker - Russian tale of first man to do a spacewalk.  Entertaining and exciting. (Prime)

Pedestrian second - First Man – A boring Neil Armstrong. but some good imagery and background on the Gemini Project. (Netflix)

Best maniac - The Professor and the Madman - Mel Gibson gets help writing the first OED from psycho Sean Penn. (Prime)

Close second - Mad to be Normal - David Tennant convincing as the maverick RD Laing. (Prime)

Best German - Balloon - 2 families try to escape East Germany.  But why? You may well ask. (Prime)

Best French - The Emperor of Paris -  about Francois Vidocq, who effectively invented forensics during the Napoleonic era.  Good sets, costumes and fight scenes. (Prime)

Best American - The Great Debaters - Denzel  in true tale of African-American debating team beating waspy whites at Harvard. (Prime)

Best inter-War - The Exception - Kaiser Vs. Nazis.  Excellent turn by Chris Plummer. Gripping. (Prime)

Best 9/11 - Shock and Awe - Tale of the only press agency to dig out the truth about WMD. Very educational and excellent cast. (Prime)

Close second - The (Blank) Report - how the CIA covered up torture after 9/11, investigator spends years finding the evidence on behalf of a senator. (Prime).

War

Craziest - Midway – True story of decisive naval Pacific battle.  So crazy it’s hard to believe. (Prime)

Best low budget - Lancaster Skies - British film that could have been made just after WWII.  Low-key, low-budget claustrophobic feel reminiscent of Neville Shute. (Prime)

Best imitation of the ‘A’ team - Rogue Warfare trilogy – Although number 2 is quite slow, it picks up again in number 3. Could there be a number 4?

Best Korean War - Operation Chromite - Yanks vs commies at Incheon.  Liam Neeson a joy as General MacArthur with corn husk pipe!  (Prime)

Best Spanish Civil War - There Be Dragons – 2 childhood friends drift apart to opposite sides during Spanish Civil War.  Prague stood in for Madrid, making a big mess of Wenceslaus square! (Prime)

Best Middle East - 12 Strong – Jerry Bruckenheimer telling of special forces hooking up with a warlord against Taliban in Afghanistan.  I reflected that’s what led to the war in the first place. (Netflix)

Best Norwegian - The Bird Catcher - Jewish girl disguised as boy hides out with family on farm, subsequently occupied by Nazis.  Gorgeous scenery and good story but weird murder/suicide shooting scene. Lead actress had amazing eyes! (Prime)

Best Irish - The Wind That Shakes The Barley - A young Cillian Murphy in fictionalisation events leading up to Irish partition.  Explained the background politics really well. (Prime)

Best Post-war - The Song of Names - Man searches for childhood wartime friend who’s lost and regained his faith and learnt the song of names.  Incredibly moving. (Netflix)

Best Cold War - The Coldest Game - Aged professor and ex chess grandmaster gets roped into a game in Warsaw as part of a complicated spy scheme amidst Cuban missile crisis. Good turn by Bill Pullman. (Netflix)

Crime

Best - The True Story of the Kelly Gang - NOT a true story of Ned Kelly, but really good Australian effort with men in large beards and dresses. (Prime)

Most predictable - The Judge - Son defends dad who is a judge on trial for murder.  Set in gorgeous little town of Sherburne Falls.  Good characters, especially grumpy old git Robert Duvall. 

Most action - The Courier - Ex-military courier kicks ass to protect witness to heinous crime. (Netflix)

Best sequel - Equalizer 2 - Denzel in top action mode.  Much better than the first one. (Netflix)

Best homage - Knives out - Parody of Agatha Christie whodunnit in large country house. Funny, entertaining and good cast but Dan Craig had a ridiculous mid-west accent. (Prime)

Daftest - Cut Bank - Caper wherein small-towners come up with a rouse to extort money from USPS. (Prime)

Best drug-related - Crossing the Line - slow but watchable modern western tale of young woman roped back into drugs running.  Great music fit well with backdrop of depressed ‘rusty belt’. (Prime)

Close second - White Boy Rick - Teenager with crap dad, gunrunner, turned FBI informer, turned drug dealer, turned longest-serving non-violent criminal in US history. (Netflix)

Least convincing assassin - Ava - Crack assassin foils assassination attempts on herself.  Entertaining but Chastain too small to be believable. (Netflix)

Best Scorsese-inspired - Uncut Gems - Relentlessly paced action in the Scorsese tradition (who’s credited as an exec producer) but portraying Jewish rather than Italian community. (Netflix). 

Best British - The Corrupted - Loosely based on land grabs before London 2012.  Among an eclectic cast, Timothy spall very convincing as evil property developer.   Harrowing in places. (Prime)

Best arms dealing - The Last Thing He Wanted  - Journalist agrees to final arms deal on behalf of her ill dad; does not turn out well. (Netflix)

Sci-fi

Best acting - Hotel Artemis - Jodie Foster plays Nurse running underground hospital for criminals. Good turn from Dave Bautista.  Odd but entertaining. (Prime)

Worst thought-out premise - Upgrade - Paraplegic gets AI implant with predictable outcome. Some imaginative elements but issues with basic premise – the Elon Musk character could have just stomped on it. (Netflix)

Best action - The Old Guard - Charlize Theron leads band of ancient immortals to root out evil. Possibly another A-Team-style pilot. (Netflix)

Too Uber- cool - Curvature - too-cool meta-physical effort about time travel. (Prime).

Daftest - Bleeding Steel – Daft Jackie Chan outing.  Ace psychedelic colours but unfathomable plot. (Prime).

Most fun - Rampage - The always-entertaining Rock in a romp with giant GM animals. Ridiculous fun. (Netflix)

Most unfathomable - Jauja - Viggo Mortensen goes in search of his missing daughter in weird foreign co-production. (Prime)

Quirkiest - The Man from Earth - Interesting premise of man who might be Jesus. Amazingly for a quirky cheap film, the sequel Holocene, was made by popular demand. (Prime)

Most imaginative - The Vast of Night - nerdy teens investigate strange noises, 1950’s style. (Prime)

Best British - Frequency - Imaginative film about everyone operating at different frequencies. A low frequency boy gets together with a high frequency girl which isn’t meant to be possible. (Prime)

Best Russian  - Attraction - Young woman attracted to an alien.  More than a nod to the day the earth stood still. (Prime)

Best space opera - Jupiter Ascending -  Girl turns out to be saviour of the world. Daft but enjoyable. (Netflix)

Best robots - Revolt - American soldier and French medic versus scrap metal robots in Kenya. (Prime)

Most cheesy - Love and Teleportation - Ex Ivy League prof builds a teleporter. Cheap and cheesy fun. (Prime)

Fantasy

Most ridiculous - John Wick 3: parabellum.  So ridiculous we watched it twice. (Netflix)

Oddest - Dean Spanley - Odd tale of transmutation and re-incarnation with Peter O’Toole in scrooge mode. (Prime)

Horror

Best vampires - Nightwatch - Long-overdue repeat viewing for this bonkers but clever, original and highly entertaining Russian film. (DVD)

Best war horror - Deathwatch - Had forgotten about this film which is odd as it has a great cast.  Although a work of fiction, it really captures the psyche of WWI. (DVD)

Best ghost - An English Haunting - Good old-school British ghost story. Posh people whingeing about inheriting huge house. (Prime)

Most psychedelic - Colour Out of Space - From the crazy mind of HP Lovecraft.  Meteor-like thing drops in Nic Cage’s backyard. (Prime)

Best British - White Chamber - originally viewed as post-Brexit Britain, could now be seen as post-Covid too. (Netflix)

Best Welsh - Dark Signal - Radio station in North Wales picks up signals, leading to discovery of who the psychopath is. (Prime)

Silliest- They’re Watching - US TV crew travel to Moldova for a home makeover show. Very silly but sometimes hilarious. (Prime)

Most moronic - Cell - Stephen King feeds conspiracy-theorists. (Prime)

Period Drama

Best - Soldier of God - Knights Templar and Saracen save each other in desert.  Atmospheric and ponderous. (Prime)

Best epic - The Mission: The Story of Islam -  tale of Mohammed getting messages from god. Those Isis dudes ought to watch it for the true message of peace and tolerance!  (Prime)

Grimmest - The Nightingale - Young Irish woman in Tasmania enlists Aborigine to avenge her. (Netflix)

Best Indian - Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy - Hero fights evil British in colonial India. Uplifting and inspiring. (Prime)

Best romp – Northmen - Vikings looking for Lindisfarne land in Scotland by accident. Lots of romping through forests, clashing of swords and manly growling. Thin on plot but entertaining. (Netflix)

Films Watched 2017

Overall Best

Film of the year

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – wonderful!  Well worth seeing on the big screen.  Vol. 1 is also still awesome.

Close second and third

War for the Planet of the Apes – although the amount of actual warfare is a tad disappointing.  Welcome re-run at Christmas with all that snow and dead coke trucks.

Blade Runner 2049 – just forget it’s Ryan Gosling!

Christmas cracker

Children of Men – the traditional annual viewing.   Now fully appreciating its prophetically post-Brexit genius,

Brit flicks

Best crime

We Still Kill the Old Way – good idea, ace cast of aged gangstas (Ian Ogilvy excellent) and fab script.

We Still Steal the Old Way – welcome sequel.  It also makes sense to see the two films as a set.

Best Welsh offerings

Devil’s Bridge - Essex boys get terrorised by a Welsh Nationalist.  What’s not to like?

Crow - interesting tale of crow people vs English knob.  You can guess the rest…

Worst Brit

Ghost Ship – very cheap.  Extensive use of Charlestown harbour & museum but severe lack of the actual haunted ship.

sci-fi/fantasy

Best

The Great Wall - ace monsters and brill colours

Funniest

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same -filmed in b/w, cheap effects include backwards alien talking, and a tin foil spacecraft.  Hilarious!

Best dialogue

Independence Day: Resurgence – (“Where’s the UFO?”) “Over the Atlantic.” “Which part?” “All of it.” 

Best use of wide angle

UFO - strange, cheap Brit flick made in Derby. Notable also for Jean Claude Van Dam making a surprise appearance.

Most interesting ideas

Arrival - not the best alien invasion film but interesting non-linear concepts of time and use of asemic writing.

Most fun

Suicide Squad – an ace Harley Quinn. 

Comedy

Best

War Dogs - amusing tale based on a true story of two guys gun running in Iraq.

Weirdest

Swiss Army Man - Harry Potter as a dead dude with magic powers – very odd!

Darkest turn

The President – set in fictional Eurasian country, starts out very funny but takes a very dark turn.

War films

Best WW2

My Way – amazing true story of Korean guy who ends up in Japanese, Russian and German army in WW2

Funniest

Railroad Tigers - a band of Chinese heroes fool the idiot Japanese.

Most Avant-garde

The Keep – very odd, early Michael Mann effort featuring Nazis, a demon, and music by Tangerine Dream.

Saddest

Across the Water - true tale of Jews escaping Nazi Denmark; made me cry.

Best historical war

Shaolin - Hong Kong/Chinese collab set in the warlord era circa 1912-28.  Features the amusing Jackie Chan as an old cook. 

Best modern war

The Siege of Jadotville - true story of UN Irish soldiers in the Congo. 

Hyena Road - Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan enjoy nice cinematography and good dialogue. 

Westerns

Best

The Free State of Jones – excellent.

Best cinematography

Jane Got a Gun – not the best western but ace cinematography.

Most relaxing

The Keeping Room - one of them relaxing violent Westerns.

Best oldie

Django Kill –original actual spaghetti western; an odd do with strange music.   Where Tarantino gets his ideas from.

Most erratic snow

The Hateful 8 - better than Tarantino’s last effort but erratic snow got on the nerves and comparisons with old spaghetti westerns now inevitable.

Best Mythical/biblical

Best

Chi-Raq -a ‘Spike Lee Joint’.  Lysistrata transported to Chicago.

Daftest

Gods of Egypt - utterly daft but very enjoyable with some awesome sets and CGI.

So bad it’s good

Land of the Pharaohs – so bad it was hilarious! 

Weirdest

Left Behind - weird premise of The Rapture with Nic Cage as heroic pilot.

Historical

Best

The Physician – really good tale of a young apprentice who goes to study medicine in the middle east in the middle ages.

Best epic

For Greater Glory (Cristiada) - Catholic repression in 1920’s Mexico.  Very educational.

Most over-long

Silence - good but very long Scorsese effort.  I joked it was like a follow up to The Last temptation. 

Grimmest

Mudbound - grim tale of 2 families in Mississippi.

Best pre-pirate Depp

The Man Who Cried -  Johnny Depp as a gypsy pretending to ride a horse in Nazi Paris.

Crime/ heist flick

Best

Hatton Garden the Heist -  gently comic tale of how the old geezers did the job.  (Not the big release).

Shiniest

Now You See Me 2 - slow start but the pace picked up with some good tricks at the end; prompted me to suggest that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) should learn to do magic for real.

Most amusing caper

The Heist –hapless men try to steal a painting.

Grimmest

Freight - violent tale of people trafficking in Leeds.

Best script

Live by Night - good story by and starring Ben Affleck.  Script was great and so are the sets.

Worst wig

Southern Fury - violent mobster action with Nic Cage in bad wig.

Action/thriller

Best

XXX: Return of Zander Cage - ridiculous but fun

Best Statham

Mechanic Resurrection - Statham in classic daft but a laugh mode.

Best political thriller

The Company You keep – Robert Redford looking good for his age.

Worst

Marauders - good concept of robbery by AI but badly executed – rubbish in fact; possibly Bruce Willis’ worst film ever.

World cinema

Best

Dhoom 3 – most excellent; possibly best of the trio even if they did nick the plot from The Prestige.

Most original

White God - mongrel dogs get revenge in Budapest.  Some great scenes and handy tips for training dogs to fight.

Best Russian

Admiral – story of the guy who effectively ran the place while the soviet regime settled down; it was interesting to see the change in perspective now they’re not commies any more.

Best Antipodean

Hunt for the Wilderpeople – lovely, gentle NZ comedy set in the 1980’s.

Best Japanese anime

Miss Hokusai -cartoon about a famous artist and his daughter.

Horror

Best

Underworld Blood Wars – contains ace wafty witchy white vampires.

Resident Evil: the final chapter - tied up all the ends nicely.

Zombie

Best

The Girl With All the Gifts – Great, if a bit slow in places.  An excellent turn by Glenn Close as evil old major.

Best low-budget

Plan Z –low budget Brit flick set in Scotland, by and starring one man.

Funniest

Sleeping Beauty - dark re-telling of the fairy-tale, set in Bulgaria with monsters and zombies.

Real-life/biopic

Best

Ip Man - true tale of the man who inspired Bruce Lee

Most old men

Deepwater Horizon – we couldn’t decide if it was an action film or trying to have a social conscience; maybe due to all them big actors now looking about 90.

Funniest

Gold – amusing tale of an idiot prospector.

Best kids

BFG – good old-fashioned kids’ movie

Pete’s Dragon